Angels We Have Heard On High
by demoness-sweet
Summary: Glorious, the castrati sang, and his voice laid down the multitudes. His angel's song, and the dark shadow of lust and shadow that stalked his light. An epic of love beyond love or hate or lust.
1. Praeludium

ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH 1/?  
  
Warning: This story contains potential SLASH. That is: a male/male relationship. DO NOT read if you are uncomfortable with this. I know that you probably know what you're getting into, but I don't have time to babysit people who cannot read the warnings, and I DO NOT appreciate getting flamed by those who have issues with my stories because they chose to read them.   
  
This is also in an alternate universe, and I apologize if the characters are dreadfully OOC.   
  
(A/N: After a stint of about two months, re-read this and realized that it needed work: so I added dialogue (which I hope you like) and deleted things, and cleared things up for later. Next chapters coming up in a couple of weeks, cuz I have finals and need to do REALLY well...)  
  
This work is based on GO, not mine...yeah. You know the drill, don't sue me cuz I'm not making money off of it. You'll get three nickels and a spatula. And I'll throw rotten cabbages at you in the process.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
~PRAELUDIUM~  
  
  
  
  
  
The city's streets were noisy, dirty, filled with life of those who made up the masses. Here a cabbage vendor haggled over the price of his produce with a woman whose eyes had hardened over the years and who no one made a fool of. Both wearing patched clothing of dust-hues, years of grime and poverty and survival as tangible as the coarse threads of flax. Arms waving, the vendor seemed on the verge of lifting into the air while the woman, face as impassive as a stone watched. Her mouth moved slightly, a few words were spoken, a ritual was fulfilled, and the vendor relented. The faint smile that graced both well-worn faces spoke of years together, accustomed to each other, friends of much more than similar interests, but understandings.   
  
There, a pair of young lovers roamed through the streets, the girl with her flaxen hair and dainty feet a splash of brightness in the tapestry of people. She tossed her hair, that sweetness with the sauciness that only Youth can accomplish, and laughed a tinkling laugh as lively as the dancing motes of dust. The other passer-byers smiled indulgently, as her young man followed in the path of her lively steps, his face a study of dazed worship. A plain, polished silver ring on one slim finger spoke volumes of days with no food but memories, night of no warmth but dreams.  
  
In the corner, a drunkard slouched in the shadows, the flies buzzing, his hand still clutching the bottle that had brought him low. A cat more bones than meat sniffed at his sleeve, tattered and fouled beyond wearing. Above, in a house of doubtable repute and virtue, a woman leaned out. Hair nut-brown and unbound, she called to the passing men and adjusted her shift, much too loose at the neck. A voice ill-intended for much more than bellowing sounded behind her, and in a swirl of gaudy red cotton and white bosom and hair she disappeared.   
  
Two men stood at a stone wall of a house, where the shade offered meager protection from the sun. Dark eyes and curly hair and stocky builds spoke of the same family, the same upbringing. Voices raised and excited, eyes sparkling, they conversed about the night before last, when they had been privileged to visit the finest opera house in the city.   
  
Made of sleek gray stone and rose-veined marble, the building had awed them with the nobility that came from age and fine taste. Yet for all the beautiful exterior, it was within that the true treasures lay. From the very first note, the very first swirl of shining cloth, the audience had been captured like moths to a flame. The acting had been superb, the women so lovely, and the music...the music had been sublime.   
  
"For shame, Alesso, for shame." At this both laughed, for it was a long-standing joke between the two. "You could at least have let the memory of Maribel have a decent funeral before you latched onto another."  
  
The young man called Alesso by his cousin grinned, dropping his head in a repentant pose, locking his legs and hunching his shoulders. The overall effect, unfortunately, was rather ruined by the impudent set of his face, and the wide grin that was threatening to break out.   
  
"I don't know what I'll do with you, cousin! Auntie Sarina made me promise, at a time when I was half-drunk that I'd look after you. Never let it be said that your most esteemed mother was not an opportunist of the highest degree…and what has this brought me?"  
  
"A companion who will help you get entirely drunk?"  
  
"Very amusing cousin. As I recall, you weren't the one who bought the flowers for Marcia, despite the fact that I suffer greatly from flower-fever, procured the "adorable donkey" for Fiona, (and nearly got brained in the process,) not to mention Sohi and the rope of sheets, Nicia and that horror she calls a nurse, Leone, that *demon* of hers, and my second-best tunic!"  
  
"Give it up, Gaetano, you coward! That dog barely came up to your waist, and the truth is that you ran away in fear just because it tried to greet you!"  
  
"Coward is it? That *dog* has teeth the size of my dagger, and it was headed straight for my codpiece! I'd like to see you with a demon that size rushing towards your family jewels, and count the seconds that you stay still!"  
  
There was a moment of silence, in which Gaetano, taller, and at this point much ruddier in face, paused for a breath. His cousin, seizing onto the opportunity like a drowning man to a log, smiled his most winning smile and proceeded to overwhelm his kinsman with the force of his considerable charm.   
  
"Cousin, yes, I apologize for my impudent remarks, and proclaim you the bravest of men. I am unworthy of having one such as you as kinsman of blood and spirit, yet cannot help throwing myself at your feet to reques--"  
  
"Alesso, buttering me up will result in nothing but a sharp crack on the head. No more serenades, no more boats, no more balcony rescues, no more PETS. I refuse, cousin, and that's the end."  
  
"But Gaetano…now that I've seen the error of my ways, you'll take pity on your poor, love-struck youngest cousin, right? Please, for the sake of my mother…please for the sake of my ancestors who are also your ancestors but which really doesn't matter…I beg of yooooo..."  
  
"Alesso, two things spring to mind. One, you are not my youngest cousin due to the fact that you have four younger siblings, yet to be honest, your behavior denies that fact. Two, should you continue that rather irritating noise, I am not responsible for upending you into the river. I hear it is quite wet these days...and that look will get you nothing but a glare from me, no matter how effective it is with my mother."  
  
"Cousin, just one favor. So tiny compared with your pure heart and enormous soul and vast resources and great intelligence...I swear on my mother's grave..."  
  
"You swore on that with Marcia."  
  
"...on my father's grave?"  
  
"Fiona."  
  
"...on MY grave..."  
  
"No need, that was for the donkey."  
  
"...on the graves of the children I'll beget with that lovely little morsel of an opera singer..."  
  
"You swore on that with Nicia, and I have yet to collect."   
  
"...COUSIN! I swear on my collection of weapons that I will never, ever, in the name of God, his son and the Holy Ghost, Mary, Virgin Mother, all Twelve of the Apostles, all Ten of the Commandments, ask your benevolent being for another favor. But my heart YEARNS for that lovely girl…I speak the truth cousin, that I shall perish if I do not marry that maiden."   
  
There was another pause as Gaetano stared down into his cousin's face. For all their bantering and threats, he really was very fond of his younger cousin, never having a brother himself. For all his gesturing and mock anger, he did not mind overmuch the feats he performed in the multiple names of his cousin's loves. He sighed, grinning as the large brown eyes (downfall of many a maiden and many a pastry baked by various matrons of the town) filled with hope.   
  
"Fine."   
  
And to make his ignoble defeat more seemly.  
  
"But your silver-plated dagger is mine."  
  
The street rang out with warm, young male laughter, as Gaetano took to his heels, grinning like a madman, while Alesso, hand over his heirloom dagger dashed after him. The dust roiled and curled like the fine tendrils of dark hair that Alesso dreamed of, ephemeral, silky smooth, and in the end, just a collapse of a dream.   
  
Deluded darling, how he longed for creamy ivory skin, slender limbs and a rainfall of hair like sun on oak. They pictured that body in its sheath of dark blue, ribbons fluttering in the moving air. In the end, false, so false.   
  
Young Alesso thought he knew about sweet tinkling laughter, the tilt of a sweetly curling head and delicate pose of a flower in flight. He thought he knew the way she talked, in lovely soft syllables and pauses, how she paused in the light, a marble statue, how she danced.* Yet the greatest knowledge of this lovely, lovely creature was a lie, the secrets of the stage, of the singers, of the opera were uncovered, hidden by faint candlelight and draping sapphire silk.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
There had always been castrati, those beautiful, un-earthly men with the voices of what some rumored to rival those of the angels, achieved by the sacrifice of what made them men. Slender, taller and weaker than ordinary men, their bones were soft, flexible with the lack of the messages in their blood that would have told them to stop growing. They were always reaching towards the sky in a futile attempt to follow the bright notes of their music, the lines of neck and shoulder proud as a stag's.   
  
Whether they stood or sat or were simply there, they shone with what some called isolation, some called loneliness, and what they called with dry eyes and tight faces, choice. For all the adoration the opera and the listeners showered upon them, there was mockery and disgust to balance the fawning masses. Half-men, freaks, lower than filth from the gutters, they called them, and much, much worse.  
  
Perhaps it was jealousy, lashing out at, as mules turn upon a unicorn, resentment and anger at the gifts they carried in grace, in fame, and the mystery called song. Perhaps it was fear of the unknown. But that lack of true human contact burned and they shied away from the outside world, becoming in essence what opera was: a tale told in music, its figures aloof, bright as the stars with their power to dazzle, yet the brightness they carried came at the price of companionship.   
  
There were little boys, large eyes lacking the realization of what had been done to them. Little peasant boys, or children of the night-lit streets, taken or bought from a life of poverty and whoredom. A sacrifice was made, sharp steel catching the light, for comfort, for money, for music. Little boys did not care yet about their blood, their bones, the mystery of woman and true man. A slice of warm bread, a soft bed to a rat-gnawed crust, a cold, cold step...they knew the beauty of simplicity. Little boys lay content.   
  
There were the young adolescents, gradually seeing the comparisons and parallels of their life and that of "true" men who could give life to the soil of woman, who could carry on the name of their families, who saw /them/ as a blight, a necessary evil. The drink of their lives was very bitter, the drops sour and dry as dust swept off stage. Youth was born to pride, manhood a citadel of glory, of honor...and they wept at their chains as outside, in the sun-lit streets, young boys blushed at the cracking in their voices, stroked the down on their upper lips in imitations of their fathers.  
  
Some closed their eyes and threw themselves into their music, their passion, the life that they had ascended and that had no return. Sharper than silver and steel their notes soared in arpeggios and minor scales, the highest notes slashing the air. Mad, mad youth, resplendent in its fury and unrestrained passion, molded by music. They craved the light, the stage like the men in the squalid holes craved drink or poppy-dust. A drug, some called it, eyes burning with something far more frightening than fear, something to numb the pain, a desperate snatching at something barely beyond their reach--an answer, a dream, a realization.   
  
And there were some...some whose anger and bitterness consumed them, and they threw away what had been exchanged. There were men who craved the strange, paid gold for freaks. And a power wept as music was exchanged for intrigue, drink and darkness. Darkness, dishonor and despair. Those children of the night clutched their bleeding hearts, gray from the dust and sought relief.  
  
But those were very, very few.   
  
For those who survived the years of youth, some reached for the moon and fell. Mediocre tutors were their station, choirboys of the cathedrals that thrilled to have such a novelty in their walls of stones, their flawed stained glass windows, their mended alter cloths and gold-plated bronze candlesticks. And they grew old and brittle, eyes already dead with the knowledge that they had leapt--and failed. Shunned by man and woman, Music had turned her back, leaving behind a sullen coal where there had been a star. And there was no choice but to take it. For all that Music is a harsh, unforgiving mistress, those that have tasted of her beauty would ere lick the dust-covered stones that have felt her footfall rather than turn their backs on a dead life.   
  
There were those slightly better, the ones with voices that were out of the ordinary, yet lacking the passion, the fire, the rapture. Comfortable in their ignorance, they were the happiest ones. Their lives as the bought entertainer of a nobleman, sometimes something more, never lacked for money, audiences, and that little spark that called itself contentment. Music had left them gently, slipping away with a blessing and a kiss. For all that they would cry out in the middle of the night, wake with tear-soaked pillows, oblivion came with the warmth and light of the sun.  
  
Then there were the rubies, the emeralds, the diamonds of the mass of gems. Priceless among semi-precious stones. They were the ones with voices like sunshine, moonlight, molten gold. They were the ones who could lift you to Heaven or cast you down to the burning pits of hell. They held the power to make men weep and tear their hair because of the brief, tantalizing, torturous glimpse into something that man was never supposed to see. Heaven, Paradise, Eden before the Fall. Ichor flowed in their veins, casting away base red iron; Music had touched their brows, looked into their eyes, and drawn the curtain of rationality to reveal Herself.  
  
But all had a brilliance about them, precious and plain and painful alike. Perhaps it was the light in their eyes, removed from the dust of the outside world to a marble and candle-lit universe. Perhaps it was the light reflected off a glass wall of isolation, fingers trying in vain to reach further, reach beyond. Perhaps it was desperation. For all the beauty that they gave, that they sensed, not one of them had touched music, embraced it wholly within itself, seen what music could be, and was. Beautiful half-men they might be, but human they remained.   
  
And then there was Assiraphio.  
  
And he...he was all of that which was human, and so, so much more. He had the power to entrance the multitudes, to move them to madness, to love, to hatred. His voice laid open the soul and told the listener: /thou who art stained with sin, unclean, defiled; listen to me, and repent./ He had the golden voice of which writers, poets and madmen termed "the terrible, unearthly, glorious, indescribable voice of an angel."  
  
Beautiful, yes, in eyes and hair and face and slim body of all castrati. Yet where some flitted like jeweled butterflies, smoldered like hot embers, he shone. Beauty was eclipsed, loveliness became an empty mist, and only a presence remained, warmth and light.   
  
When men and women would praise him, calling him "Angel of the Stage," delicate lips would curve in a fond smile of irony. Assiraphio. Raphael. Seraph. Angel.   
  
Unable to portray a fraction of the miracle that was /music/ in Heaven through this body, equipped as it was, he nevertheless strove to. And his voice was such that in any other time and place, would have enthralled kings, started wars, and toppled empires into the dust from whence they came. But that would have broken his heart. Because he was love, and he was hope and he was joy, and to become another Helen, send another thousand black ships and brave men to their doom would have broken his heart. And he hid in secrecy, in obscurity, only coming out when the need for song consumed him--  
  
And so, he sang.  
  
  
  
  
  
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*This is NOT our angel. Different lovely boy, will introduce later.   
  
I wasn't too sure whether or not this version is better or not than the original. *Sigh* That's the problem with revising your own work after a stint. You come back and realize that it really has major issues, and you change it and you change it some more, and you're not sure if you did the right thing.   
  
Tho' if you review and tell me if, and what, and who you liked, I'll try to steer the story somewhere pretty and write more... 


	2. Ad Te Omnis Caro Veniet

ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH 2/?  
  
(AN/ Hi everyone, I'm back with the new [and I sincerely hope] and improved version of Angels We Have Heard On High. It took me a while, and I first had to gather myself up from the shaking puddle that was me after my math final. It was not pretty, but I did it and yeah...so tell me if you like this new version, and how I can make it better...)   
  
(AN/ Not mine, blah blah, plot is mine, and so are the OC's, so please don't snitch, cuz it pains me to admit that you'll probably do a better job than me. *sighs*)   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
~AD TE OMNIS CARO VENIET~  
  
  
  
  
  
The road to the city was long and misty with dust. With every step, the silver-gray powder rose and fell in little swirls and flurries, smelling of acrid mustiness that comes with age and centuries of dried up rain. It settled in hair and eyes, turning everything a shimmering shade of gray. Inside little inns and grand villas sitting within the city walls travelers shook out their cloaks and hair, and little piles of dust would drift, silver as the coins they laid on the counters. It was warm and comforting, and when they were finally clean and freshly scrubbed, they would think of the dust, the enveloping cloud with something that resembled longing, then shake their heads, incredulous, at this loss of reason.   
  
But yet the dust had something within that spoke of comfort, of being warm and deliciously dirty. Nights spent on roads looking up at the stars, roasting slices of hearty bread over a dancing fire, companions with the stars in their eyes and hearts warm as the fire. And perhaps it was this that the travelers wished for, all alone in a musty bed, the city's lights and thick walls turning away the starlight.   
  
The dust was beautiful, as were the trees, the orchards that lined the road. They were known for their sweetness...and the neglectfulness of their young owner. Decades ago, when an old man, uncle of the young man reigned master, the trees were well tended, the orchards harvested in the efficiency that marked the lives of farmers. But that was before the years turned hair gray and bones brittle and wagon wheels stubborn and temperamental.   
  
The young drunkard who now was master had seen the city firsthand, when he was a callow youth and impressionable had tasted of carnal sin and drink. Abandoning the hardy beauty of the day, he lived for the smoke-filled, shadow-ruled pleasures of the night. And now his orchards ran wild, the trees stretched their limbs, and the fruit, sweeter in their wilderness, dropped ungathered. Always in the stupor of the inebriated, his grapes dropped and dried untended, his pears turned to fragrant, faintly wine-scented husks. And so, the scent of sun-dried fruit danced with the motes of dust. It kissed the senses, yet danced away laughing like the dryad it was, when travelers, eyes wide and searching for that hint of Eden tried to quaff it deeper.   
  
The trees would rustle in the wind, glossy dark leaves hiding branches. The dust motes that were everywhere would settle and turn the green the shade of northern pines touched with frost. Yet far from the frigid, majestic beauty of the cold, these trees laughed like plump maidens, enticing and lovely with life and fruit.  
  
And the sun was always there, shining down. That was what everyone remembered. The maidens would chatter about the warmth, the farmers complaining about how their produce would spoil, the older folk content to bask in the golden light that made them feel younger. It was like a heavy amber velvet that looked, felt, even smelled of /warm./ Not merely warmth, but a settling, a laxness of the bones, a slumbering of petty problems in the face of ultimate comfort. Merchants, pilgrims, the occasional minstrel, they all succumbed, each step simultaneously lighter and heavier than the last, the sights and sounds a rich German wine. They were like men in a trance, Lotus-eaters, eyes heavy lidded and limbs moving like drowning men content in an underwater world.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The farmer sat in his wooden cart, master of a worn bench worn smooth with time, a tired plodding horse, and twelve sacks of turnips, still smelling of earth and work and nature. Lulled by the beauty around him, reminding of that time when he had drunk himself into a golden haze, his broad hands merely held the reins, the horse plodding step by step on its own, unguided. Dull eyes the hue of opaque mud gazed dispassionately, insensibly at the road. His dull peasant's mind, uncorrupted by higher learning was filled with muted anticipation of haggling a good price for his turnips. It had been a good year, he thought, and the money would bring a good month of eating. Perhaps, and at this his mind supplied a coarse picture, a girl could be 'persuaded' to entertain him.   
  
He'd seen some of the girls there, little slips of things with pretty painted faces, and he shifted a bit, remembering the scraps of cloth they called clothing, and the pretty white flesh he'd glimpsed, so very different from the peasant girl he called wife, with her walnut-brown skin, tanned from years spent in the sun. With hips like a cow, who possibly could have been pretty once, like the girls who stood on the streets, clothing and hair slightly, wrongly, askew. He sighed, once, and shifted again. He had been young once, and still could remember the sparks he once felt. But the sparks were never really strong, and Time had strangled the rest.   
  
The old horse lifted up her head and slowed. It had been said, in the peasant's grandmother's time, that animals knew, in ways that humans did not, when there was good, or when there was evil. But that had been a long time ago, and the knowledge that she had disappeared with her ashes, flying black against the light of dawn. But the farmer felt the jarring that came with slowing, and lifted his head to a far-off figure that grew as they came closer.  
  
There was something about that black-cloaked figure. Something beneath that opaque covering, something licking at the surface, like flames or sparks. There was power underneath, hot power, passion, coursing through. And although the day was slightly warm, the leaves just beginning to bronze, there was heat emanating off of the figure that was as alike to the sweet golden warmth as ruby and amber. It's heat was that of fire, of scarlet flashes and crimson mists, of obsession and all things violent and beautiful.   
  
In the farmer's mind, the image of the girl with her flimsy shift grew more vivid. He could almost feel her fingers, her lips, her soft little breasts. He licked his lips, tongue flickering nervously. Was it just his mind that supplied him with thoughts of a sly, knowing smile, cool little hands that stroked and fondled? He had only been with two women in his life of dirt and drudgery, and neither had the red lips and flickering pink tongue as the girl in his mind.   
  
His mind dismissed the thought it had been turning around and around, like a miser and his gold. His world was one of solid, earth-colored forms, and his sub-consciousness hid behind an impermeable wall of conviction that such things, such beings did not exist. This man was nothing out of the ordinary, just another traveler headed for the city. Just a man. He cleared his throat and called out, voice rusty from a day's disuse and clogged with fine dust.   
  
"Stranger on th' road!"  
  
The figure turned, and regarded him, silent. The farmer felt as if he were a head of cattle and the man an impassive buyer, eyes on his face, whip in experienced hand. The shadowed eyes seemed to be testing him, flickering to the cart and the horse who was twitching and fidgeting, eyes slightly wild. The hairs on his neck pricked up for no good reason at all. There was flame underneath that black hood, something dangerous and wild and primal underneath that cloak. And it was this his mind latched onto; something solid in the indescribable fear and allure that this man inspired. Black cloak in the warmth of early autumn--the peasant shook his head, disapproving at the folly of some, while his mind cowered in disbelief and knowledge that there was something not right about this figure. He coughed, the thoughts fleeing his mind.   
  
"Stranger, goin' to th' city? An' could I offer you a ride?"   
  
Why did he offer to give a ride to this black-clad figure, he suddenly paused to ask himself. The very thought of that tall figure who radiated fire and brimstone and blood next to him was frightening in the least. And yet...the girl brought him to her mouth, tight little mouth like a vise. His head spun and he cast out his thoughts that were bits of sharp, uncomfortable rocks in the delicious haze that was his mind. A single traveler in the heat of the day, dressed as if it were the first month of the year, the Lord would reward those who helped others. Yes, yes, the traveler needed help and he was a kind man, offering his wagon. Perhaps it would relieve the nagging of his conscience, over the years growing to sound like the constant scolding of his fat wife.   
  
Was the figure smiling? Could it see the images in his head, his loose thighs jiggling, his paunch shaking as that talented little mouth squeezed and the pink tongue stabbed? Impossible.   
  
That level gaze shifted back to his face, reddened and shiny with sweat. The gesture was as regal and dismissing as a king's, dismissing him as no threat, a fact which both relieved and irritated him at the same time. It, no, HE-no woman could have that aura of masculinity* seemed to pause for thought, and then began to speak. It was a deep, pleasant voice...yet the farmer shuddered. It was a voice that was beautiful and terrible at the same time. Hidden swirls of smoke and silken veils seemed to drift in the velvet soft.   
  
The sensations seemed to increase tenfold. His shaft lay thick and pulsing as the girl continued to suck, her naked body curled between his legs, curtain of hair hiding his lap from view. Reaching down he fondled the little breasts, almost able to feel the soft, warm skin. He swallowed, feeling dust and dry spittle and bile burn its way down. Why was his mind giving him such images? Surely no woman had ever touched him in the skillful way of this little courtesan...   
  
"I would be much obliged to you."   
  
A gentleman, definitely, he thought. Those clear concise words, the ringing tones, the gentile manner. He tried to grin and held out a hand as the stranger approached. The cape seemed to flutter in the breeze like the licking of flames. And still he could not see the man's eyes or features, hidden in the shadows that made the hood. He seemed to float across the ground, long legs bringing him close within moments, swift yet with purposeful intent. The farmer did not want to know what would happen to men who crossed this black-clad figure.   
  
He had all the warning of a tree about to be struck by lightening before his horse reared. The heaving of the chest, the flailing legs, the rolling of the eyes, all so completely abnormal. The stranger seemed to find it a source of amusement. If he didn't know better, in this advanced age, the farmer would have claimed that the horse was trying to kick the man who stood next to it silently, trying to reduce bone and skin to tatters, split open by shoes as large as a large man's hands  
  
"It seems I frighten your horse." The softest of comments, with an underlying menace.   
  
Eyes wild, the horse frantically reared its head, trying to escape the stranger, who laid his hand across its forehead. It was almost equivalent to the pronouncement of a death sentence. The farmer shook his head as the horse flinched and was still. Fear, thick as the layer of dust seemed to suffocate him in its grasp. He would have been calmer if the man had struck the horse dead with one blow-that brief touch of a hand was mockery and the cold eyes of a predator feasting on the terror of its prey. Even the twitch of rich lips was the cruel slash of a claw.   
  
The leap onto the wagon, barely making a sound was also dangerous. The farmer knew that he needed a barrel to clamber upon the old wood. Twelve handspans, and the slightest touch caused the structure to scream its pain. Perhaps the touch of this man had silenced its voice. Without meaning to, he slid farther away than necessary, leaving a handspan of warm air between him and the silent figure that sat on the wood as if it were a pagan throne. Even so, the heat that rose off the man was scorching, and the farmer felt as if he were falling into a pit of fire.   
  
He snapped the reins weakly with hands that shook, and the horse plodded on. Yet even he, inexperienced horseman though he was could feel the barely retrained instinct to run beneath his hands. Slowly, coming back stronger than ever, the vision of the girl slid back into his mind. He knew little else as his shaft, softened with fear, quickly stiffened again as the girl pushed him on his back, sliding over him with silken flesh and soft hair.   
  
The wind was blowing its way through the mane of the horse and the farmer would have arched his back and moaned as the girl spread her legs and guided him into tight wetness. But he remembered his companion next to him, and swallowed the moan that was struggling to break from his throat as his manhood was struggling to break free of his rough breeches. Discretely he shifted a bit, coughed to cover the reddening of his broad face and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The man next to him said nothing nor moved.   
  
The sun shone upon them, and the heat seemed to immerse the wagon and its riders in a golden haze rich as honey and soft as silk, the motes of silver dust glinting, faerie-powder, dancing in the wind. It settled on hair and clothing, caresses as seductive as the girl in the farmer's mind, head thrown back, riding him…riding him…and the jolts that he felt…  
  
Were just the brief pauses of old wheels and an older wagon. And had there ever been a girl, the farmer could not recall her name or the color of her hair. He remembered a red, red mouth…or was that the color of an early apple he'd seen? Sensations, all he could remember was warmth and slickness. Just the sunlight in the air, and the sweat that was on his back. Many had said how the sun shining too long on their heads caused them to see three-headed beasts and the earth moving beneath them.   
  
And yet there was a worrying in the back of his mind. There was the sun, and the dust and the air that many said could make a man drunk. But…but there had been something in his mind, and the farmer would not have been disturbed had it just been something that he had forgotten in a moment of lost memory. It was the sensation that something had been inside of his mind, and that the thoughts that he had had were not entirely his.   
  
Tugging at his collar the peasant tried to occupy his hands, moving in jerky motions to cover the unease that he felt. The day was so hot, and he could not see how the black-clad figure did not fall like many did, after a day in the hot sun. Strange-he no longer seemed to be mysterious or menacing-how did he ever think that this tired gentleman was frightening? There was no strange fire that burned around him, and his very being seemed to be that of a traveler who had walked too many miles alone.   
  
He had just imagined the fear that he had felt, the farmer was sure of it. Too many hours under the sun, seeing monsters in the face of a man who had needed a bit of help. There was nothing to cower from in this simple man who no doubt was visiting a sick relative. Perhaps her name was Elda and she had recently taken a bad fall. The man was her nephew, second son of her youngest sister, who was chamberlain to a minor lord, three days away from the city. Just a simple man.  
  
They crossed a small road in silence, the wagon creaking and churning up silvery dust before the peasant felt at home enough with the man. Coughing a bit to make his presence known to this gentleman, he paused a bit before asking,  
  
"Stranger, what name d'you go by?"  
  
The stranger did not speak, and the farmer began to feel worried. Did he offend this man, whose ways spoke of higher learning? The silence was a tense one, even the sound of the horseshoes on dust more muffled than usual, quiet and powdery. Then the voice spoke quietly, yet with an edge as poisonous as a snakebite, a vicious humor that spoke of a dead man's grin, his rotting head mounted on an enemy's pike.   
  
"You may call me…Angeamor."  
  
  
  
  
  
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*Crowley doesn't do things by half-measures. If he wants to be male, he's MALE.   
  
**"Angeamor" is my mutilation of "angel-lover" in pseudo-Italian-French.   
  
Throw me scraps of helpful criticism. Always in awe of better writers. Especially those who crank out genius stories *coughDaegarcoughafraicoughrippercough* ^_^ 


	3. Lux Aeterna Luceat Eis Domine

ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH 3/?  
  
Hey peeps, here's the third chapter in my pseudo-epic. First foray into the world outside one shots and uncharted territory, wot? Yeah, and me with my non-existent sense of direction. Damn. Have changed the names of the titles to things that actually fit well. Whoever can tell me the translation and the context first will get a Rider-fic or Them-fic of their choice (pairings included) ^_^   
  
A/n: Same old, same old, feedback requested and bribes offered, no rotten tomatoes or veggies, cuz I can't eat them, the celestial beings are not mine, GNeil probably rolling in his...not-grave in hysterics over characterization and bad plot. So don't sue me cuz I'm a starving underage musicienne in the land of Oz.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
~LUX AETERNA LUCEAT EIS DOMINE~  
  
  
  
The light caught and broke into prisms of dazzling rainbows on the necklace that spread its tendrils over the white bosom of Lady Elenora di Nicostrato, sitting in the balcony. One hand rested on her fan of jewel-toned peacock feathers while the other fluttered like a vain butterfly, landing in well-calculated places; where to best show off a dark beauty mark on fair skin, to brush a saucy curl back into place, the dark hair so sleek and smooth against a slim finger.   
  
The gallants in her booth, deterred only the slightest by the presence of Papa, were entranced and showed their infatuation with the witty remarks that dropped from their lips, extolling her loveliness and grace. Handsome Danilo with his dancing dark eyes shot looks sharp as Apollo's arrows at Fantone, lounging in the corner, wicked mouth curling at a corner, words smooth as dark chocolate and twice as intoxicating. Many times the words would turn barbed and grow little hooks like rose-bushes, the charm and intellect more engrossing because of the pointed wit. Both would sometimes turn on Bruno, who belonged to the Pace household, rich as a king, polite as a courtier, but dull and uninteresting with his labored recitations of his visits to his summer villa and his account books. It was great fun to prick the dullard, Danilo and Fantone both agreed, unspoken and watch him try to retaliate clumsily or have the subtle slices simply go unnoticed.   
  
The balcony, high over the head of others, was reserved for the best and those with the fattest waistcoats. Elegant columns of white marble had vines trailing delicate leaves climbing over them in carefully pruned designs. Each little room was furnished for a king, silk curtains and velvet couches, maidservants and pages outside the chamber door. It was circulated amongst the gentlemen that certain rooms had certain pretty maids who would offer...other services, should proper incentive be given. Even less talked about, and thus more well known was that a few select rooms had youths who would offer the same, and were rumored to be even more skilled than the maids.   
  
Underneath the balcony niches were the seats of those with enough money to come to hear the music, but without the clout of sufficient money or family to earn a private chamber. The benches lined the floor, shining softly in places where the scattered candlelight shone on polished wood. There had been a fire once in this building, and the owner had sold it, wishing it good luck and good riddance. The new owner, a shrewd man of many talents had seized upon the magnificent structure and built it into a palace for music and dance and acting.   
  
The opera house was open.   
  
The whispering and occasional flirtatious giggle wove in and out of the sounds of the rustling of clothing that filled the domed building. Fresca Ingloridi clutched her shawl closer to herself, moving closer to her son who was talking to his wife. The loud sounds of men shoving each other to get a better seat frightened her, as did the flames that flickered in the dripping white wax bowls.   
  
A fire, her mind complained, one little touch by some lout and the seats, ah, the seats and the stage and the people would burn. She remembered the first fire quite well, the building dancing with the hot red-gold flames that seared the eyes and the sky with heat and ominous black roils of smoke. She coughed a bit, wondering why she had listened to her son and came here. A singer, he had said, music like God Himself. She sniffed quietly, a singer indeed-probably a little tart with a better figure than voice.   
  
In a corner where the shadows met the polished wood floor and the stone walls had no tapestries of silks covering them, a young mother stood, cradling her little girl in her arms. It had taken a month's worth of savings to gain entrance, but as she looked down at that sweet little face, so thin but unfaltering in its faith and love for her, she knew it was worth every night, bending over the candlelight, needle flashing like a silver fish, her eyes burning with tears unshed. Her darling was dying, she knew, withering away as the pain ate her inside.   
  
The doctors had told her, eyes fearful, already knowing, that her child had no hope. So she had asked the little girl what she could like to see. "To see Momma in a dress like the ones the grand ladies leave. Carla would like to see that..." The tears had burned their way to her eyes, as she had clasped the child to her breast and tried to hold onto that fading little light. As she stood in the corner one day listening to the ladies gossip over the cloth she had labored over, she had overheard the praises for the mysterious singer with a voice like nothing on earth. Her mother's heart had seized upon this, and her greatest wish was to give her child the finest before the beautiful blue eyes faded away.   
  
From their vantage point they could see and giggle softly at the shiny bald plate of the man in the front row, rotund and sweating in his opulent, poorly chosen red velvet. No doubt Merchant Ulrico thought himself as debonair and rich, but his ungainly weight, crushed by the masses of those in summer silks looked like a sickly turkey in a group of delicate songbirds. Perhaps, and at this he leered internally, he could catch a pretty singer to "sing" at his house in the middle of town. Those with old money and Houses of repute, bloodlines shaped by the hierarchy within the city and the breeding that came with the names, looked upon those like Ulrico as the "new rich;" pampered peasants little better than their cousins in the fields.   
  
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The light within the opera house dimmed as candles on the far sides of the building were put out by manservants in dark livery, candle-snuffers long and silvery in the impeding darkness. The many oil lamps on the stage provided a bright golden light for those on stage-an altar that the audience below worshipped with their wide eyes and held breaths.   
  
The orchestra began to play softly as the first singer glided across the stage, her dark-kohled eyes and long purple robes proclaiming her an exotic storyteller. The tiny silver stars and moons sewn on the violet silks glimmered like secretive eyes as she opened the tale with a question.   
  
"What is love?" She sang, notes dipping and gliding like magnificent birds. Throwing out her arms, a question to be answered by a wise man or a fool, thin bangles sounding their bell-like chords. She turned to the audience beneath her, then to the balconies, then to a face or force unseen in the background, eyes unfocusing to dreamy dark pools.   
  
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The girl walked slowly onto stage, emerald eyes with the soft luster of a maiden in love. A soft breeze blew through the building, rippling the ribbons in her hair and the folds of soft cloth that drifted gently behind her. Her sweet high voice hummed a simple melody that wafted to the silent audience.   
  
A young man entered from the opposite side of the stage, pausing as he saw the lovely maiden in her reverie. The slight smile on his face was that of a man seeing the dream on which he based his life upon come to existence, singing gently the song of youthful spring. In a quiet, strong tenor he joined in her gentle melody, weaving his richer, deeper strands within her notes.   
  
The tale was simple: that of a maiden and her lover, separated by fate and families. The bass roar of her father, eyes flashing and black beard bristling like an angered king, and the throbbing contralto of her mother spoke of tradition against her willful love. They beseeched her to reconsider, begged her to offer her hand to the one to whom she was betrothed to, and then ordered her to leave the one she had bound herself to.   
  
The maiden wept as she took leave of her anguished lover, who clasped her hand and then tried to embrace her shaking form. Her lowered head and feeble attempts to struggle spoke louder than words. Letting her go, like lifting his heart out from his bared chest, the man turned away. "So you shall give yourself," he sang, broken-hearted. With a swirl of his short cape he left, head bowed in defeat. The maiden crumpled to her knees, crying out her everlasting sorrow.   
  
The wedding was alive with the sound of bells and drums, black-tressed girls dancing in time to the beat, painted lips and sparkling eyes shining from thin gossamer veils of blue and saffron. The groom was tall and handsome, clad in the rich purple that signified his rank, waiting eagerly for a glimpse of his lovely bride. The drums and the music started to crescendo, becoming more frantic and welcoming. The bride's carriage opened to reveal a sad figure in white, the shimmering silk and lustrous pearls paling in comparison to her walnut-dark hair, yet unable to hide the sorrow that emanated from her veiled face.   
  
The groom seemed taken aback, yet welcomed her in a baritone voice that reveled in its dark, rich notes. Her sweet melody, which had shifted in key to a melancholy minor reassured him. The music continued in its climb, and dancers started their dances.   
  
Dances swirled, peacock dances, harvest dances, dances of a thousand fans...yet the most spectacular was the last dance, one of a masked and veiled man, covered in silken cloaks that swirled around his swordplay, flashes of dark amethyst and sapphire cloth around a silken dangerous silver blade. The candlelight shone on the wickedly sharp steel, reflecting its slashes and beaming off of a spin that turned the single blade into a bright disk of singing silver.   
  
The blade caught on a fold of the outermost cloak and sent the material floating away. One by one the coverings were thrown off, piles of silken fabric like languid lakes of gems, until only one remained, black as night with sparkling gems sewn on as violent stars. The blade had never stopped its perilous journey, twisting and dancing into shapes each more convoluted and complex than the last, striking the air with such speed that the very air thrummed and hissed like a living thing.   
  
When the sword spun the last cloak into the air, a piece of night sky, no one heard the bride's pained gasp over the cheers of the other dancers. Her lover stood panting, in tight black pants and bare-chested, slim silver steel still held in one white-knuckled hand. His eyes were the blue of despair and there was no life in his voice as he sang his song of triumph and pride in his art.   
  
With a soft scream that pulsed through the audience the bride stood in all her white. Tearing the veil from her face she turned so that all could see her pale face that bespoke pain and sorrow, her huge eyes dominating like bruises, the crystalline tears trailing down her cheeks. Transfixed in their places, the wedding guest did not stir as she sang her song. At the climax, when her lover had fallen upon his knees and held his head in his hands she produced a bottle, sleek, with its sleek dark lines proclaiming death.   
  
None dared stop her as she tilted her head and tipped the contents into her mouth, singing that she shall "stay my love's wife in spirit until the sea itself shall burn." None dared moved, one and all frozen like marble statues as she sank slowly down in a graceful sigh of virgin white. And none stopped the youth as he broke the spell and crawled to her dying body.   
  
He held his love in his arms, kissed her forehead and face with desperate passion, as if his vitality could keep her alive. Live, he seemed to scream with the haunted look of a knowing man, live, and prove these eyes of me wrong, revive this lump of dead flesh throbbing in my chest. Live, I beg of you. The girl smiled, pale lips opening as in supplication, and whispered a note of love so sweet that the man, cradling her in his arms wept like a child.   
  
When her head fell back and her small hand grew limp in his, the youth rose to his feet, old within moments, still cradling the body of his love. Like the old men of a million races his back was bent and his eyes had become ancient as the skies.   
  
"Forever I shall sing!" He screamed to the skies, not a song but a sacred hymn of death.   
  
From the scabbard on his waist he drew his sword again, and the audience drew in their breath with the horror of what he was about to do. The blade shimmered silver in the light, edge as sharp and thin as spite and malice before it disappeared within his body. Like the sand slipping slowly down an hourglass he sank to his knees, holding tenderly the one he loved beyond life, beyond death. They lay intertwined, hand in hand as the lights around them went dark.   
  
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He stood, face in profile, nose and lips kissed by the dim light of oil lamps far to his left, long lashes catching the amber light and reflecting it. Eyes, closed as if awaiting an unheard, unseen sign; fringes sweeping curved cheeks. Light and dark brought out the planes of his face, the smooth unbroken surface of brow and cheek, the delicate eye, the mouth, slightly open.   
  
He stood with his body facing the audience, sloped shoulders worthy of the loveliest maiden or stag, disappearing into sleeves like clouds, lace breaking in waves over small hands, ivory carved with their smooth backs, delicate fingers tapering from rounded palms. His hands gave the lie to his remaining masculinity; they were the hands of a girl, some rounded, curvaceous Juno (1) with her silken couch and amethyst tinted grapes. They should not be clutching the shoulders, fluted collarbones like a swallow's flight displayed by the frame of ivory-clad arms in some horrifyingly beautiful statuesque pose of pain. The dim light sharpening the image of Orpheus in his frenzy (2), Apollo as his Hyacinth fell (3), never softening this tableau that was consecrated, made holy through its agony.   
  
Golden hair was burnished, left free in this wild scene, some unseen breeze letting wisps fly, a halo that swept a neck bared like a sacrifice, a chiaroscuro masterpiece of hollows and white hills. Tendrils dancing across folds of silk white as virgin snow, slim hips clad in wine-dark velvet. He was magnificent. And when he opened his mouth to sing, the lamps flared in a burst of fiery light so bright it dazzled the mind and blinded the eye. It was so perfectly timed, to the second when the first note burst out that to those watching, it was as if he had sung the flames to life, he had willed the sun to come out into the shadows with the power of his voice.   
  
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Perhaps, thought the dark shadow lounging in the shadows, he did. Or maybe, he was the sun itself.  
  
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With his golden hair the shade of molten Earth-blood, copper underlying the molten gold, he was no pale rose. He was the flame that consumed Orpheus when Eurydice disappeared under the frozen ground blazing pain incarnate. He was Apollo in his golden grief, shining with his agony, ten-fold strong. He was the Earth herself, weeping tears of molten gold and fire when her sons were cast down. He was the light that prevailed in times of sorrow and horror, living against the darkness of death and banishment, standing against the dark bowels of cold iron and brittle shallow stone.   
  
But it was his eyes, the magnificent mystery of his eyes that held the audience in his thrall like a chain forged of love or blood. Even covered, for in their original glory, wrought with passion and pain and indescribable music they would have drowned one in one blaze of perfection, they beckoned. Beyond that stark black, eyelids woven with pale blue veins flickered in flashes of blue.   
  
And when he sang, the ghosts of tears could be seen on his cheeks. Music, it was true, was the bridge from this plain dark earth to both Heaven and Hell. The notes soared higher than they should have, beams of sunlight lancing the muted gray silence. They touched the darkest corners of the theater, dust gathering in forgotten mosaics of faded stone and glaze. The old man who swept the streets paused outside to listen.   
  
The tears on his grizzled cheeks were real as the cobblestones beneath his feet. His rags and tattered broom a parody of the Baroness of Bianco Chigno(4), bosom covered with forest-hued gossamer fabric, bedecked with pearls, opera glasses tiny and exquisite with detail. There were tears on her cheeks, no more crystalline than the street sweeper's, despite the powder and grime that covered respective cheeks.   
  
Such was Assiraphio's legacy. Every night that he sung, the music once again brought men and women to their knees before God and his messenger. They were, one and all, the speechless shepherd, terror and veneration warring in their hearts as an angel came to tell them of the birth of the Son of God. Earthly riches and pride were cast away. What mattered was the purity of heart, and that was revealed in a voice that scoured men's hearts and let them see the glory that was to come.   
  
The performance two nights past was a tabernacle of gold, of love so deep and sweet that it was rumored that roses grew out of the sides of the opera house the next morning, where barren stone used to stand. The market women whispered that they were unearthly in their beauty, so white as if glowing, so sweet that their perfume intoxicated the wanderer who chanced to smell them. No one dared to pick them, not even the poor lovers who picked through the wilted bouquets of the rich in the hopes of finding a still-blooming plant. It would have seemed like sacrilege.   
  
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Long fingers sheathed in snow white linen caressed the slender stem. Corners of a sensual mouth lifted in a secret smile as the owner nibbled on a petal silken as a cloud. Sacrilege indeed. It mused on the finer points of philosophy. /Fools go where angels fear to tread/ And what about the realms that a fool feared to tread, even a fool greater than any in the mind-robbing, sense-stealing haze of love? Laughter danced in eyes hidden by a dark hood. The answer lay in the combination of the two riddles, and the desecration of a virgin rose.   
  
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But the philosophers held no candle to the beauty that shook the house tonight. Tonight was an altar of sorrow that sobbed a nightingale's tears. No less beautiful because of its pain, it spoke of love lost, regained, and lost again through folly, more painful with the glimpse of possible light.   
  
They had long given up trying to find a partner for their brightest star, and so tonight was a soliloquy built on a single man's grief, relieved by no friend. Anguish had condensed to fill this single slight figure with its hair of earth-gold and ancient eyes, Agony was his name and Love was his bane and he shone with the purity of his pain.   
  
The last note stretched on, echoing through the reverberations of each heart.   
  
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Carla smiled a tear-streaked smile sweet as the rosy dawn. "Momma, my dearest Momma..." she whispered, eyes just as blue, just as intense as Assiraphio's brimming eyes behind the cloth. Her mother bit her lip as her darling wound arms fragile as a bird's wing around her neck.   
  
"I have seen the glory, Momma, and I am glad. An angel, Momma, an angel of God just sang. Carla is sad to be leaving Momma, but the music..." a sigh that whispered of a visitor's dazzled eyes of the Gates of Heaven. And the realization that this, truly, this was home.   
  
"Carla loves Momma, forever and ever and ever."   
  
And the smile, oh, the smile...the smile was worth a thousand slow deaths, the young mother bit her lip to keep from crying out. Her darling's vagabond father who stole away one night, the illness that stuck like a famine to the young body, sucking the vitality and spark of youth-all sorrows were wiped away in the brilliance of that one final smile.   
  
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There was silence before the applause shook the building. That second, or seconds when understanding transcended bourgeoisie acceptance. It was true sorrow that man had long since purged the blood of angels from their veins, or some would have seen the moment for what it was. They would have written about it, fought battles for it, and gone home to the dank darkness that smelled of plain living, and reached for a decanter and a blade. Yet the age of madmen, lunatics and prophets was past, and all remained was honest admiration coarse in its commonness as the figure that moments before stood on stage with all of his glory given to him by God, disappeared, silent as a shadow, to the back of the stage.   
  
A similar figure, perhaps a little darker, a little taller, slinked off as the first wave of sweetly nauseating bouquets flooded the stage. Only the ripple of a burgundy curtain marked the passage of air.   
  
No one saw a dark figure leap to the open window on the third floor of the plaza. The old street sweeper claimed he saw Sin itself fly on muted wings into a room of light. They dismissed his ramblings as that of a man befuddled with age and hard living; knowing in their minds that no man living could have accomplished such a feat.   
  
They were right-  
  
-Angeamor selected a chair, and waited for light. His hands were covered, as was his face. In one hand he held a rose, burgundy dark, a single white petal defiled with the imprints of sharp teeth.  
  
  
  
  
  
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(1) Juno was the wife of Jupiter, queen of the Roman gods, presiding over the home, gentler version of the Greek Hera, still renown for her white arms.   
  
(2) Orpheus, the harper, son of one of the Nine Muses, in the Greek legend Orpheus and Eurydice. Went down to Hades to bargain with the God of Death for his dead wife. Failed to follow directions, and looked at his wife the moment before she stepped into the sunlight and would have been alive again. She went down to Hades to stay, he went mad (some say) and died later, torn to pieces by followers of Dionysus, who were angered by his melancholy.   
  
(3) Hyacinth, one of Apollo's many lovers was a very beautiful youth (all the Greek gods were bi-sexual, really). He was killed when they were discus-throwing, cuz the North Wind, also a bi-sexual god, was jealous of Apollo, but couldn't hurt him. Relationship dynamics in bi-sexual Greek mythology=fascinating.   
  
(4) Bianco Chigno=White Swan. If anyone speaks Italian, could they tell me if the adjective goes in front of the noun (I took the name from Il bianco e dolce cigno or like French, in which the majority of adjectives go after? More language mutilation on my part.  
  
  
  
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Good? Bad? Suspense? Don't worry, the going-at-it-like-weasels will come! A bit of feedback and/or encouragement might help it...*blatant signwaving* /R&R requested!!!/ 


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